IMAGe Theme of the Year education and outreach




		Participation in the TOY workshops is becoming more diverse as IMAGe adds different kinds of activities to its thematic programs. One way to incorporate applied mathematics and statistics to geoscience problems is to offer summer learning opportunities that mix students of different backgrounds in a comfortable environment and encourage interaction and questions. These coordinated activities have the potential to significantly increase the multidisciplinary training of young scientists. This also brings new mathematical approaches to challenging geophysical problems, such as estimating the Earth's sources and sinks of carbon.

Summer 2007 graduate workshop on Data Assimilation for the Carbon Cycle

An acknowledged hallmark of mathematical science is that the same mathematical and statistical methods and models can be used to solve problems in very different contexts. The success of mathematics in the geosciences, however, must be based on geoscientists and applied mathematicians working in multidisciplinary teams and being knowledgable in complementary scientific fields. The long-term investment in multidisciplinary applications must be based on the training of young researchers. The IMAGe summer school "Data Assimilation for the Carbon Cycle" held July 8-13, 2007 is a recent example of NCAR's support of innovative models, developing new algorithms and methods, and training young scientists.

Quantifying the flow of carbon into and out of the atmosphere through both natural and human activities is an important problem in biogeoscience and also a key factor in understanding climate change. Measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations are limited to a small number of towers or to irregular spatial sampling from the ground or from satellites. The challenge is to make use of these observations to estimate carbon fluxes into the atmosphere. A solution to this problem requires a multidisciplinary perspective that includes an understanding of the carbon cycle, the use of atmospheric circulation models, and skill in statistical modeling and data assimilation. The main purpose of this school was to train the next generation of researchers to tackle problems such as these by working within a multidisciplinary science team that combines geoscientists, ecologists, statisticians, and applied mathematicians. Participants obtained an overview of this problem plus some specific skills in tackling inverse problems and working with geophysical and biogeochemical models.

This summer school was part of the 2007 Theme of the Year (TOY): Statistics and Computer Models; it was also supported by the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI). MSRI is the oldest mathematical sciences Institute sponsored by NSF, but the program emphasizing the connections between mathematics and climate is a new focus. Copying the program from the previous school held at MSRI in 2006, the morning sessions consisted of tutorial lectures, and the afternoon sessions used computer exercises to teach data assimilation methods. Each day also featured a special invited lecture on a topic related to the geosciences, ecology, or applied mathematics.

One unique feature of the school was the use of DART software to teach data assimilation. DART, an open source and publicly available software environment, is designed not only for teaching but also for tackling the large assimilation and inverse problems found in the geosciences. Thus the school has not only introduced many students to assimilation, but it has familiarized them with software that can support their graduate research.

Approximately 25 students attended the school, evenly split with backgrounds in mathematics or in the geosciences. The students worked the computer exercises in pairs, and in general the interaction and networking throughout the school was reported to be an important attribute.

Plans for 2008 target two different groups of students. A short school featuring exercises in DART is planned for statistics graduate students in August 2008 to give them experience with geophysical numerical models. The 2008 TOY summer school on turbulence will synthesize experimental, theoretical, and computational approaches to understanding geophysical turbulent flows. This school has the ambitious goal of giving students some computational experience on the NCAR Blue Gene/L, a massively parallel prototype of possible future supercomputers.

TOY summer schools are made possible through NSF Core funding.